


Ghosts of Candlenights Past, Echoes of Candlenights Future

by capitalnineteen



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Candlenights, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, F/M, Pining, pre-legato
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 12:05:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17161685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capitalnineteen/pseuds/capitalnineteen
Summary: Barry is feeling a little sad this cold Candlenights evening, thinking about Candlenights parties growing up and the life he thought he'd have. Truthfully, he's just feeling a bit lonely. Maybe that will change...





	Ghosts of Candlenights Past, Echoes of Candlenights Future

Barry was standing on the deck of the Starblaster. He was wearing his bluejeans because of course he was. He was also wearing two thick pair of socks, heavy boots, two shirts, a sweater, and his IPRE robe.

He was still cold. This plane was too dry for snow. The whole planet was rock and sand. But it was just a little too far from this universe’s sun.

Still, inside was too much right now. The crew was winding down a Candlenights celebration and Barry had never felt less inclined to celebrate. For some reason he kept thinking of the Candlenights parties his mother had thrown when he was a kid. The last one had been when he was thirteen. At that age, he’d still been awkward - well, that puberty kind of awkward, anyway. He’d still thought awkward was a thing he’d grow out of eventually. He’d felt out of place in a house full of his mom’s friends and coworkers. He’d watched these adults drink and laugh and dance and leave together as happy couples going home to their homes and beds and lives and it had seemed so alien and unfathomable but it had still seemed like a thing he would have one day.

Instead he was nearly twice as old as his body and four decades deep being desperately in love with one of the only six people who he could know for longer than a year. There would be no happy drive home from a party, no late night whispers about the people they’d talked to, no shuffling around the house together turning off lights and locking doors, no crawling into bed to snuggle up to the person you knew best in the world.

So for now he was standing in the cold, in the almost-dark, alone and wallowing in a misery he didn’t let himself feel very often.

He leaned on the rail, hands shoved deep in the pockets of denim that didn’t offer nearly enough insulation from the temperature, and looked down at the cold and barren world below. At least they had the light. At least this empty universe could continue on when their year ended soon.

And then they’d go to a new plane and a new world and new people. He couldn’t imagine it right now. It just made him tired.

A noise behind him startled him upright. He turned to see Lup come out on the deck.

“Whatcha doing out here, Barold?”

“Hey, Lup,” he answered, turning back to look over the rail again. “Just getting some air.”

Lup came up beside him. “It’s freezing out here, Bluejeans.”

He didn’t comment.

Lup nudged him with her hip. “Hey, what’s up?”

He tried to shake off the mood that had descended on him as the evening had worn on. “Just… just, uh, needed some air,” he repeated.

Lup reached for his arm. His hands were still pushed deep in his pockets so she pushed up his sleeve and wrapped frozen fingers around his wrist. “I’ve been out here thirty seconds and I feel like ice. You’ve been out here a while. It must be more than air.”

Barry turned to her and hoped the dark covered the expression he couldn’t quite make disappear.

He forced a smile. “It’s fine, Lup.” He pulled his hands out of his pockets and took her frozen fingers between his, rubbing the skin to warm her. “How’s the party?”

“Eh, everyone has headed to bed. Or pretty much. I think Davenport and Merle are playing another hand of that card game of theirs. Did you see that new deck of cards Lucretia painted for them?” She wrinkled her nose as she laughed. The men had loved the deck though Davenport had protested there were way too many plant suits in the deck.

“Another Candlenights is gone, I guess.” She wrapped her fingers around his. “Come back inside. It’s too cold to stay out here.”

Barry let her lead him back into the ship. He pulled the door shut behind them.

“Hit the lights?” she asked.

Barry flipped the switch and let the Starblaster’s running lights guide them back to the common room.

“I saved you a mug of hot chocolate,” she told him.

Sure enough, a large mug sat by the couch, a handful of their precious stockpile of miniature marshmallows floating on top. Well, he couldn’t let those go to waste.

He sat on the edge of the couch and picked up the mug. Lup came and sat beside him, her own mug in her hands that she must have had stowed somewhere waiting.

“Sit back,” she commanded. “I’m still frozen. How are you so warm?”

Barry sat back against the cushions and Lup tucked herself in close to him. She pushed her hands down in the space between their thighs and pulled her legs up, angling them out the other way on the couch. There was nothing for him to do but shift his cocoa mug to his other hand and wrap his arm around her.

“So what were you thinking about out there?”

Barry took a sip of his drink as he considered how to answer her question. The cocoa was warm and chocolatey and the perfect amount of sweet. “Uh… just, um, old memories, I guess.”

“Oh, fuck. Yeah, I guess some people did have pleasant Candlenights memories, huh?” She wriggled her head against his side trying to nestle in more comfortably. She yawned and settled into stillness. “What was that like?”

Barry thought about it. It felt too soul baring somehow to tell her these thoughts but it seemed unfair that he’d been stabbing himself with these bittersweet shards of memories while she and Taako didn’t even have any.

“Before my mom got sick she always threw these huge parties. She’d invite everyone - friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, people who didn’t have anywhere to go… anyone she could get to come. But somehow I was always the only kid there and it always turned into people watching for me. These couples in their lives sharing a night out. You’d see them glance at each other across the room and catch each other’s eye, sometimes. Like if one was trapped listening to some boring story? And they’d share some look and the other would come rescue them.”

“Aww, sweet. Taako and I kinda had that but it was more about ‘come distract this guy so I can stuff more apples in my pocket’ kind of looks.” She reached for her mug on the table in front of them then leaned back against him. “Seriously how are you not freezing? Ugh, humans are so much luckier with internal temperature, I think.”

Barry rubbed his hand on her arm as she curled back close to him.

“Would you come rescue me if I was trapped in some boring… Ha! You already have! Tonight when Merle started explaining the difference between those plants on the cards and you came and told me Taako needed help in the kitchen.” She yawned again.

Barry huffed a laugh and continued trying to rub warmth into her arm.

“When we get out of this mess and can settle somewhere we’ll have a really good Candlenights party, okay? Just like you pictured.”

“Sure, Lup,” he answered. The problem was that he could picture it all too well.


End file.
